(Posted 03/02/09
www.RemnantNewspaper.com)On
December 22, 2005 Pope Benedict XVI gave an address to the Roman
Curia in which he pointed out that there have been two opposing
ways of interpreting the Second Vatican Council—the “hermeneutic
of continuity” and the “hermeneutic of discontinuity”. The latter interprets Vatican II as a break with
previous doctrine. The former interprets the Council as in accord
with previous doctrine, even if admitting that the emphases and
points of stress in the Council are different from the emphases and
points of stress in Church teaching for some time previously.

The Holy
Father endorsed the “hermeneutic of continuity” as the proper was to
regard Vatican II. This position is correct not simply because of a
single address of Pope Benedict, of course, but is absolutely
necessary to preserve the indefectibility of the Church herself.

Over the past
years the Holy Father has certainly taken steps towards implementing
this proper hermeneutic. For example, in 2007 the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith clarified the proper meaning of the term
“subsistit in” found in the conciliar decree Lumen Gentium.
Around the same time the Holy Father, in Summorum Pontificum,
declared that the former “Tridentine” liturgy had never been
abrogated. These are just two steps taken by the Holy Father to
promote the proper “hermeneutic of continuity” in regard to the
Second Vatican Council.

Now the Holy
Father has authorized the Congregation for Bishops to lift the
excommunication of the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X
consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre without papal mandate in 1988.
While I do not agree with the action taken by the SSPX in 1988 (or
for some time previous to that), it is a matter of simple justice to
point out that the “hermeneutic of discontinuity” has been the
major factor in the dispute between the SSPX and Rome, and it is to
be hoped that the implementation of the “hermeneutic of continuity”
will bring about reconciliation.

In light of
the Holy Father’s efforts to implement the “hermeneutic of
continuity” broadly and to reconcile the SSPX particularly, it is
disappointing that a Catholic journalist of the standing of George
Weigel has responded to the lifting of the excommunication of the
SSPX bishops by promoting a “hermeneutic of discontinuity”
which has been rejected by the Holy Father.

In his recent
Newsweek article on the subject Weigel criticizes Archbishop
Lefebvre for his rejection of “modernity”—by which is meant the
Liberal principles of the French Revolution. Weigel claims that for
Lefebvre to “affirm
the right of religious freedom and the institutional separation of
church and state—was to treat with the devil.” Weigel also says
that this attitude on the part of the Archbishop was a result of the
conflict in France between the French Revolution and the Church, and
argues that “Lefebvre seems not to have read a fellow Frenchman's
reflections on a very different kind of modernity, Alexis de
Tocqueville's "Democracy in America””.

There is no doubt that Archbishop
Lefebvre saw the Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis
Humanae) as a break with previous Church teaching against the
principle of religious freedom. A full analysis of the Church
teaching on this matter is beyond the scope of this article. It
seems for the present sufficient to simply say that, while the
pre-Conciliar teaching condemned religious freedom under the law as
an absolute inviolable principle, while also condemning the
belief that people have an absolute moral right (before God)
to practice a false religion, the Second Vatican Council is
referring to a limited right to freedom from state coercion
in religious matters— “immunity from coercion in civil society”, to
use the Council’s own expression.

For this
reason the Council, in its own words, “leaves untouched traditional
Catholic doctrine on the moral duty [emphasis mine] of men
and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of
Christ.” [DH 1] In other words, men do not have a right
before God to practice any religion they choose, but rather have an
obligation before God to be Catholic. This is so even though the
individual also has a right to a freedom from coercion in this
matter within certain limits.

The Council
stresses that this right to religious freedom is limited, is
not the absolute right to religious freedom condemned by the
pre-Conciliar popes and exalted by the American and French
Revolutions. For example, this freedom from coercion exists only
“within due limits” [DH 2] and “provided the just demands of
public order are observed”. [DH 4] A right to a freedom from
state coercion in religious matters, together a moral obligation to
be Catholic (Vatican II), is a far cry from a moral right to
practice any religion (American political doctrine).

While Weigel’s
interpretation of Vatican II’s teaching on religious freedom is
inaccurate and unjustified according to the actual Council text
(both in itself and in light of previous papal teaching), it is true
that a superficial reading of the text by one viewing it though an
American political “lens” could lead to such an interpretation. So
it is possible to give Weigel the benefit of doubt. He could have
simply misunderstood what he read.

Nevertheless,
Weigel’s weak understanding of history is herein exposed. We can
leave aside more obscure historical facts, such as that at least one
major influence on the American founding opposed all monarchy on the
grounds of its historic link with Catholicism. It is even possible
that Weigel is somehow unaware that precisely this conflict between
American founding principles and Catholicism did, in fact, lead to
the anti-Catholic “No Nothing” political movement of the 19th
Century. But surely Weigel must realize that the reason the
American Revolution wasn’t as violently anti-Catholic as the French
Revolution was that France had a large proportion of practicing
Catholics who immediately recognized the opposition between their
Faith and classical liberalism. In America this was not at all the
case.

What is most
disturbing is Weigel’s apparent endorsement of the American model of
Church and state, something which is in no sense endorsed in the
Council, and which has been repeatedly condemned by the Church. In
his Syllabus of Errors, Blessed Pope Pius IX explicitly
condemned the doctrine that “the Church ought to be separated
from the State, and the State from the Church”.

The same
pope’s encyclical Quanta Cura and Pope Pius XI’s Quas
Primas and Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei are among multiple
papal condemnations of the idea of a secular state, rather than a
Catholic confessional state. The text of Vatican II explicitly
“leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty
of…societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of
Christ”. This can only mean that the state qua state must be
Catholic—but that within the context of the Catholic confessional
state non-Catholics have (within due limits) a right to immunity
from coercion by the civil power in religious matters. Again, the
idea of a secular state, or a separation of Church and state, is not
found anywhere in Dignitatis Humanae.

Moreover, it
cannot be argued that the defense of the Catholic confessional state
by pre-Conciliar popes was directed at anti-clerical governments in
Europe or in some other way does not apply to the American ideal of
separation of Church and state. In his encyclical Longinqua
(concerning the Church in the United States) Pope Leo XIII reflected
on the growth and success of the Church in the United State, and
then added:

The main
factor, no doubt, in bringing things into this happy state were the
ordinances and decrees of your synods, especially of those which in
more recent times were convened and confirmed by the authority of
the Apostolic See. But, moreover (a fact which it gives pleasure to
acknowledge), thanks are due to the equity of the laws which obtain
in America and to the customs of the well-ordered Republic. For the
Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of
your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against
violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals,
is free to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is
true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in
America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the
Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for
State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced
[emphasis mine]. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good
condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all
means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed
His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances
interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but
she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to
liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the
public authority [emphasis mine].

It should be
clear that while the Church can in practice accept American
separation of Church and state as a tolerable situation, the
Church does not and cannotaccept such a model as ideal. To
interpret Vatican II as endorsing an American model of separation of
Church and state is not only at odds with a true interpretation of
the Council, but is not even an understandable misinterpretation of
the Council texts, as it doesn’t find even a remotely plausible
basis in the words of Dignitatis Humanae.

Weigel’s
interpretation of Vatican II constitutes, ultimately, a practice in
the “hermeneutic of discontinuity”. In the case of his
understanding of religious freedom, Weigel’s understanding of
Vatican II (as well as the reading of both Vatican II and pre-Conciliar
popes on this issue by the SSPX) constitutes what may be an
understandable misinterpretation which propagates the “hermeneutic
of discontinuity”.

However in the
case of Weigel’s implications that Vatican II provides a basis for
an American style separation of Church and state in must be said
that Weigel is clearly in violation of pre-Conciliar teaching and
“makes” Vatican II responsible for errors which it does not even
remotely imply. Such a tactic is worthy of left-wing dissenters and
their slavish commitment to the “spirit of Vatican II”.

Regrettably,
it seems that Mr. Weigel’s commitment to neo-conservative American
politics and the principles of the American founding have given him
divided loyalties and, however sincere he may be, he seems to be
attempting to square circles in order to merge these commitments
with Catholicism—thus promoting the “hermeneutic of discontinuity”
in the process.

If they
haven’t already, the SSPX must eventually come to accept that there
is a right to freedom from coercion in matters of religion within
the context of a Catholic confessional state—to do otherwise would
be to deny authoritative Church teaching. However, the SSPX (and
all Catholics) must also reject the Americanist ideal of an absolute
moral right to religious freedom and of separation of Church and
state, errors which Weigel is at least implicitly promoting.

The unity of
the Church and the “hermeneutic of continuity” can only be served by
interpreting Vatican II in accordance with both the letter of the
texts of the Council itself and in continuity with previous Church
teaching. The position of Weigel is quite simply a misinterpretation
of the Council texts in accordance with a secular Americanist
political ideal. It is a misinterpretation which would obliterate
Pope Benedict’s principle of a “hermeneutic of continuity”, violates
Catholic orthodoxy, and endangers reconciliation within the Church.